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The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were unclean, that is, unwashed... "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites... These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me..." ... "Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean." ... "For from within, out of a man's heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come from inside a man." (Mark 7:1–23)

If the heart is the real problem, no tradition, ceremony, or good deed can clean us up enough for heaven.

The Setting: A Controversy Over Washing

This is class four, "the key to a perfect world." As in the previous weeks, we begin with the testimony about Jesus in the Gospels, because Scripture points to Jesus as the perfect revelation of God. Tonight we are in Mark 7:1–23.

Jesus was moving from town to town around the Sea of Galilee. A group of Pharisees and teachers of the law came up from Jerusalem because there was quite a stir about Jesus. When they arrived, they saw something that bothered them: Jesus' disciples were eating without ceremonial washing.

It's important to notice the parenthesis in the text. This is not about eating without cleaning up for dinner, some unhygienic practice. It is about not washing according to the religious standards of the Jews. The Pharisees were one of the strictest religious groups within Judaism. They were convinced their right standing with God came through observing both the law and the traditions handed down century after century.

Tradition Above Scripture

The Pharisees went to Jesus as the disciples' leader to ask their question. By this point in His ministry, the religious leaders already had it out for Jesus, looking for opportunities to trip Him up because the people were following this teacher from Galilee rather than seeking the leaders in Jerusalem.

The disciples had not broken the law of Moses; they had broken the traditions of the elders by not washing in the prescribed way. This tradition was extremely precise—down to how much water was used and how it was poured. Jesus first replies directly to the Pharisees, then turns to the crowd, and later explains the matter to His disciples.

He charges them with letting go of the commands of God to hold on to the traditions of men. His example is Corban. By declaring possessions devoted to the temple, a person was no longer obliged to support aging parents. They could shelter an estate, claim it was dedicated to God, refuse to help their parents, and then later release it. Thus they nullified the word of God—specifically the fifth commandment, "Honor your father and your mother," which Paul calls the first commandment with promise.

Isaiah's Warning and the Danger of Religion

Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah, who lived about 700 years before Christ, when Israel was in steep decline and about to face judgment. The amazing thing, both in Isaiah's day and in Jesus' day, is that these people had turned away from God yet felt they were fine because they still observed the traditions, the temple rites, and the feasts.

This is the danger of religion. It can make people feel, "I did my religious service, so I'm okay," while their hearts remain far from God. The very religious leaders the whole nation looked up to were the men who would ultimately plot to kill Jesus. They lulled themselves to sleep with their religion—a danger any of us could fall into.

What Truly Makes a Man Unclean

The Pharisees reasoned that as you move through life you pick up sinful "gunk," and if you don't wash it off properly, it goes into you when you eat and makes you impure. Jesus says the opposite: it is not what goes into a person that makes him unclean, but what comes out that reveals his uncleanness. The problem is already inside.

His disciples found this confusing, because physical illness happens when bad things go in—germs, food poisoning—and we get well when they leave. But Jesus is not talking about germs. He is teaching that all food is clean morally. Eating non-kosher food cannot make you spiritually unrighteous.

The Old Testament dietary laws had very real practical reasons—no refrigeration, no preservatives, no modern sanitation, so shellfish and certain foods could spoil and kill you. But over centuries people came to view these rules as what made them righteous before God, rather than as God's protection. Jesus points out that food has no bearing on your moral condition. What makes a man unclean is what comes out of his heart: evil thoughts and evil desires.

Four Ways the Pharisees Were Wrong

Authority. For the Pharisees, traditions were primary and mandatory for all, and they effectively elevated tradition above Scripture, since their Corban tradition broke God's command. For Jesus, obedience to Scripture is what matters. Traditions that conflict with Scripture are not to be followed. This does not mean every tradition is bad—many cultural traditions the Bible is silent about are perfectly fine—but where Scripture says "Thou shalt not," we honor Scripture above tradition.

Purity. The Pharisees emphasized a traditional, ceremonial purity, believing the ceremonial washing of hands produced moral purity. Jesus emphasized moral and spiritual purity. Physical purity is good, but it has no moral value and does not make you righteous. These men were washing ceremonially and offering sacrifices at the very time they were plotting to entrap and kill Jesus—a clear disconnect between religion and true righteousness.

Worship. What was missing in the worship of the Pharisees was the heart. Worship must come from sincere love for God, from the heart—and also with the lips, because the lips express what is in the heart. Just as the word of God is the perfect revelation of who God is, your words reveal who you are at the deepest level.

Moral goodness. The Pharisees valued keeping tradition and practicing God's law externally. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), Jesus deals with the heart: hating your brother is murder in the heart; looking with lust is adultery in the heart. He calls the religious leaders hypocrites and whitewashed tombs—beautiful outside, full of dead men's bones inside. They loved to blow a horn over their giving and pray loudly to be seen and praised by men.

The Root: A Sinful Heart

The social problems Jesus mentions—dishonoring parents, plus sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly—are the very things on the news every night. Their root causes are following wrong traditions and, above all, an evil heart.

Are evil thoughts sin? They can be, when the choice to sin is made in the heart. An angry, lustful, or hateful thought can pass quickly through the mind, or we can choose to hold on to it; when we hold on, it moves into sin. We must guard our thought life, by God's grace and power.

Where do these thoughts come from? Not from external things in the world, but from the heart. The prophet Jeremiah said the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. The human heart is evil because of the fall. In Genesis 3, sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so that every one of us is born sinful.

Born Sinful

This is not politically correct in 21st-century Western society, which prefers to say we are born inherently good and only made bad by society. But Jesus teaches otherwise. Sin begins in our evil heart. Picture the self-centered, sinful heart with "I" at the center—rebelling against God and competing with others. This isn't learned. If you have children, you never have to teach them greed, lying, or "Mine!" It surfaces on its own, very early.

The sinful heart produces evil thoughts and desires, and when acted upon they become sinful actions, which cause the world's social problems. Some today even deny the existence of evil, yet the world's atrocities make that impossible. As one Old Testament Scripture says, "Every imagination of man's heart was only evil continually"—the very reason God brought the flood in Genesis 6, and a verse proven again every day.

Forgiven, Yet Still Sinful

We saw in earlier classes that Jesus forgives sin—the paralyzed man lowered to Him and the sinful woman who washed His feet. He proved His authority to pardon sin. But even after being forgiven, will we still sin? Yes. I've yet to meet a sinless, perfect Christian. Trusting Jesus does not instantly make us flawless, because the sinful nature still resides in us.

This creates a serious dilemma. Heaven is a perfect place; no sin is allowed in God's presence. If our sinful heart remains, can God admit us into heaven? Not on our own terms.

God's Standard: 100% Perfection

How perfect must one be to live in heaven? In Matthew 5 Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"—100% morally righteous. Is 80% good enough? No. Even 99.9% leaves a 0.1% imperfection, and the one who comes before God must be completely holy. First Peter 1:16 says, "Be holy, because I am holy." God compares us not with other people but with His own holy nature.

Popular but false ways of evaluating ourselves are: comparing ourselves to others ("I'm not as bad as so-and-so"), and weighing our good deeds against our bad. The problem is that we can always find someone worse, and we won't know until judgment whether our scale tipped the right way.

For years at the Escondido street fair we ran a "good person test," offering $20 to anyone who passed. People said they were pretty good. Then: Have you ever told a lie? A thief? Have you taken something not yours? A thief. Have you looked with lust? Jesus says that's adultery of the heart. Have you used God's name in vain? By their own admission, people had broken four of God's Ten Commandments, and we were just getting started. Standing before God by that standard, they were guilty—and the consequences are eternal, far more than $20.

The Wrong Idea of Judgment

Most religions—Islam, Mormonism, the Jehovah's Witnesses—operate on the scale: my good deeds will outweigh my bad. That is a flawed view of judgment. True judgment weighs us against Christ Himself. Spoiler alert: you will never be as righteous as Jesus. Set your life next to His, and we are always crooked.

So we don't have to wait until judgment day to know our goodness isn't enough; compared to Christ, it never is. This is the bad news every one of us needs to hear. Man's most basic need is a 100% clean heart.

Reforms That Cannot Reach the Heart

Can the problems of society be solved without solving the problem of the heart? No. Social reforms are only external; they don't change the heart, and so evil continues. Consider modern history. At the end of the 19th century, after the scientific awakening and the Industrial Revolution, thinkers anticipated a utopian 20th century. Then came World War I, with tens of millions dead. We thought we'd fixed it; then came World War II, with over 100 million killed. The 20th century became the bloodiest on record.

All our advances in science and technology cannot deal with the evil heart, and now we are confronted with its effects every moment. Bad news from across the world reaches us in seconds. Many of us watched September 11, 2001, live on television; today it would be streamed by countless cameras. The problems of society are not fixed.

A clean heart is required to enter heaven, the dwelling place of God, where there must be total perfection. Can we, by our own religious rites, ceremonies, or purifications, make our hearts 100% clean? No. If the heart is sinful, even our good actions are only external. Isaiah 64 says, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags." So is man capable of doing morally good deeds before a holy God? Not from the heart—our wicked heart taints them all.

Our Sad Future—and a Hint of Good News

We are not able to enter heaven without a 100% clean heart. Why is forgiveness alone not enough to solve our sin problem? Forgiveness deals only with the penalty or punishment of sin—that's hell—but it does not change the sinful heart.

But there is good news: God has the solution for the clean heart. You'll have to wait until next week for it. Next time we'll be in John 3, where Nicodemus—considered the teacher of the law in Jesus' day—comes to Jesus. Read ahead in John chapter 3 for class number five.

Questions: Judging Others

One question raised our tendency to point fingers and say, "You're going to hell for that." In Luke 13, people told Jesus about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and about eighteen killed when the tower of Siloam fell. Both today and then, we assume tragedy means someone was an especially bad sinner. Jesus answered, "Do you suppose these were worse sinners…? I tell you no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

We deflect the spotlight onto others because we don't want it on us. But the day will come when we stand before God with no one else to point to. First Corinthians says those who compare themselves by themselves are not wise. When we hear of someone like Jeffrey Dahmer being saved before he died, we see God's grace. He was suffering the just consequences of his murderous deeds, yet God forgave him. None of us are serial killers in deed, perhaps—but in our hearts we have killed many by our hatred, and so we all stand convicted by the law.

Questions: Children, the Disabled, and the Age of Accountability

We're born sinful, so what about children who die young or those with disabilities who cannot consciously understand the Gospel? Consider David in 2 Samuel. After his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, the prophet Nathan exposed him; David repented (Psalm 51), which is why he is called a man after God's own heart. The child born to him fell sick. David fasted and prayed while the child lived, but when the child died, he washed, ate, and said, "He cannot return to me, but I shall go to him."

This points to what we call the age of accountability. God is gracious and merciful. In Exodus 34, when God introduces Himself, the very first word He uses is "merciful." If He had begun with His justice or holiness, none of us could stand. For children who die before that conscious age, and for those who cannot comprehend these truths, God is gracious. But for those of us who can see the heavens declaring His glory, who have the Scriptures and the personal revelation of the Gospel, we have no excuse. Since 1973 and Roe v. Wade, around 60 million children have died by abortion in America; I believe, because of God's mercy, they are with Him in heaven.

Questions: Baptism

There is no place in Scripture giving good support for infant baptism. Many churches practice pedo-baptism (infant baptism); here at Cross Connection we practice credo-baptism, believer's baptism. Jesus commanded us to make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptism is submerging a believer—someone who has put faith in Jesus—as their first step of obedience, identifying with His baptism, His death and burial (going under), and His resurrection (coming up). Baptism does not save you; it is a sign of the faith that saves you.

Questions: When Life Begins

We believe life begins at the moment of conception; human life is human life even at the embryo stage. There is intense discussion about this today—researchers can now sustain an embryo beyond the previous 14-day limit and want to see how far development can be pushed in a laboratory. A heartbeat appears around day 20. Some ethicists argue even a newborn's life is not yet "sustainable" and that infanticide could be permitted; this is being pushed especially in the Netherlands, along with assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The Christian position holds a strong reverence for life because all life comes from God; He gives life and He takes it away. Jeremiah 1:5 says God knew Jeremiah before he was born; He knit us together in the womb. Because life is given by God, we don't have to settle the impossible question of which week makes abortion acceptable. These are genuinely hard, deep questions—my wife, a nurse in the intensive care unit, faces them regularly, and hospitals have ethics panels for them. But the biblical conviction that life begins at conception and belongs to God grounds us.

Closing Prayer

God, these are heavy, heavy things, and I pray that none of us are ever in a situation where we have to make those kinds of difficult decisions; but, Lord, ultimately You are the one who gives and takes away as it relates to life. I believe, according to what we read in the Scriptures, that all our days are recorded with You in heaven. I pray that we would wisely number our days. As Moses said, the days of our lives are seventy years, and if by reason of strength eighty years, so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Help us to realize the shortness of this life and the length of eternity we cannot even comprehend. We want to be with You forever. Thank You that You give forgiveness, dealing with the penalty of sin; and as we will see, You also have a way of dealing with sin's power, and one day You will deal with the very presence of sin. We thank You for Your grace and Your forgiveness. Help us to know it personally and to share it with others. In Jesus' name, Amen.